


Memories of a Fighter

by GohanRoxas



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Childhood Memories, Implied Romance, Minor Character Death, Other, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 02:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4329840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GohanRoxas/pseuds/GohanRoxas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spurred on by the return of her friend - as a very different man than she knew him as - she remembers her past... The happiness, the pain and everything in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories of a Fighter

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as an assignment for university, and I liked it enough to want to post it here. It's got no real purpose other than to guess at what happened to Tifa between the Nibelheim Incident and the beginning of FFVII.

How long had it been since the last time she had seen him? She had lost count of the years, spending time in the slums of Midgar – first healing from the wounds that had been inflicted on her when her home had burned down, then working and eventually running a bar of all things – completely unaware of what had happened to him.

When they had met for what felt like the last time, it had been on the water tower at their shared home town of Nibelheim, in the dark of night, meeting in secret for the first and last time since she had healed her physical and mental wounds that the whole town had blamed on him…when really, he was the one who had saved her life.

He was hardly more than a toddler in his look back then; messy, long blonde hair tied into a ponytail, the fringe so ridiculously spiky it defied logic; dirt on parts of his face were accompanied by a plain white adhesive bandage on his cheek. His knees looked grazed, dried bits of blood and mud all over his legs, left bare by his khaki shorts.

But when he had stood up and looked at her with his blue-green eyes, a look of determination in his face when he had declared, “I’m going to join SOLDIER,” she swore that she could see the man he could one day become. And there was this odd mix of the two – the boy and the man – in his eyes when she had made him promise to be her hero…that when she was in trouble, he would come and save her.

_And he absolutely did_ , she reminded herself privately. _That and so much more._ And her mind filled with fire once again.

Her memories returned to the day Nibelheim burned down…the day the legendary Sephiroth – hero of ShinRa, the greatest SOLDIER alive – went mad, slaughtered hundreds and burned the village to the ground.

Now she was watching herself – her younger self, garbed in a cowgirl outfit her boss at the tour guide’s had insisted she wear – kneeling at the side of her father on a cliff face, outside the town’s Mako reactor. There was a hole where his heart should be, blood seeping from it and covering his favourite white shirt. Discarded to one side, droplets of his blood staining it, was one of the last photos of the whole family – her and both her father and mother. They were all smiling broadly.

“Father!” she had cried, shaking him gently. “Wake up, Father!” But the still form did not move.

The next few moments were like a blur. Her vision had gone red – rage and grief overtook her. She remembered a blood-stained sword, an insanely grinning face framed by silver hair, pain… She knew that it was where she gained the scar between her breasts; Sephiroth had cut her with his sword, she had been told later.

And then he had been there – garbed in the armour of a ShinRa foot soldier, brushing her raven black hair away from her face. “Cloud…” she smiled weakly as she looked up at him.

There had been almost no trace of the impulsive boy anymore. Yes, his face still looked boyish and young, but his eyes…they were all man now. The determination he had shown her so long ago, it was still there, but in full flame now. “Sorry I’m late,” he smiled back, chuckling to himself despite the gravity of the situation they were both in.

“Better late than never,” she had laughed back before coughing from her wound.

“Hey, easy,” he fretted, fixing her hair again.

Then, as her world had begun to darken and she slowly slipped into unconsciousness, she had heard a door slamming open and a voice, strained in anger and pain, rebuking her hero. “That I would be stopped…by the likes of you?”

Another strained voice – this one kinder and full of pain – had rung out. “Cloud…finish him off!”

As Cloud had stood, her mind went completely black.

When she had awoken, the first thing she had said was “Cloud!”

“Easy, girl,” the voice of an elderly man had said; she felt a lightly restraining gloved hand push her back down onto the bed. “You need to recover more.”

She turned and saw the short grey hair, the full beard, that familiar _gi_ and costume… “Master Zangan?”

He nodded kindly. “You were hurt when Nibelheim burned.”

She looked back at the ceiling, her eyes filling with sudden tears. “So it wasn’t…”

“A nightmare? Unfortunately not. Sephiroth really did lose his mind.”

“Where are we now?”

Her martial arts teacher had smiled sadly. “We’re in Kalm now. I had to get you out of there or you’d be dead.”

“What…what happened to Cloud?”

“Last I saw him, he was collapsed from exertion. He fought Sephiroth to a stand-still. And it looks like he did it for you, missy.”

Her answering smile was weak. “Well, I did ask him to be my hero.”

“That he was, girl. That he was.”

After she had healed, Zangan had resumed her training in martial arts, focusing on how to use her hands and feet, as well as counter being grabbed by an opponent. But those days didn’t last.

Her trainer had been an old man, and the smoke from the fires had clearly gotten to him. He had been dead within months.

It was at that point she had made the trek to Midgar, hearing tell of a small group calling themselves AVALANCHE, opposing ShinRa and their misdeeds. So she headed there to find them, only to find herself wearing a skimpy outfit of a white sleeveless top, suspenders and leather skirt while working as a waitress in a seedy-looking bar. Of course, eventually…

“Tifa!” a voice interrupted her and she blinked, looking at the man at the bar. It was Cloud, with his ridiculous spiky hair and that huge sword on his back.

“Sorry,” she apologised. “Just…got lost in thought, I guess.”

“Well, Barret’s been on my case about getting this mission started. Let’s mosey.”

She smiled a little. “Okay, okay, let’s go.”

Tifa thought that this was the ending of her story. That she would spend most of her time making explosive statements to ShinRa about their actions, and that would be it.

But this was just the beginning.


End file.
